Chapter 38 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Fourth Movement: Custodians of the Incunabulum

Chapter Thirty-Eight

* * *

Jane felt awareness return.

She smiled with the mouth she still controlled. The Thief was either still asleep or had simply stayed away.

She could spend more time with Erahndira. More, now that they were in Glyph, there was hope they could find a way to be free of the Thief and return home with the Incunabulum.

Home.

Jane Airkhart realized that its location had changed. She spent a moment thinking of how she would talk John into coming to live with her and the Miu.

Wait. That room. Someone had grabbed them. What happened after?

She opened her eyes.

The room was bright. The ceiling was not what she expected.

It was the milky crystal substance of the Spire. She tried to sit. Pain lit up her side and she gasped.

“Jane!” from her left. Erahn’s finely furred face came into view. “Don’t move, ya! You’re hurt.”

Gentle hands pressed her onto her back. The floor was hard, but there was a softness behind her head. Flicking her eye to the left, it looked like Erahndira’s clothing.

Her lover was naked. So was she. It was very warm, wherever they were.

Jane looked around. It was a cave they were in, made of Spire stuff.

“Erahn, what’s happened?”

Her lover looked around, ears twitching. She turned away and bit her lower lip. Her face scrunched up.

“Hey! Hey, now!” Jane reached up and caressed her furred cheek. Erahndira turned to her and—mindful of her lover’s injury—fell into her arms, sobbing.

Jane let the spasm pass. It took a while. Finally, Erahndira calmed and pushed herself up. “What happened to us, Erahn?”

Erahn told her. They were pulled into that room. Light so bright it felt like it was taking her apart caused Erahn to pass out. When she awoke, she was tied to a table. She could find no sign of Jane.

Pacing the room was a man in dark leathers and cloak. He had shoulder length black hair. He looked very much like Jane.

Here Jane interrupted to ask for details. She confirmed what the man himself had said, he was Jane’s twin John. At least, he seemed to be.

Erahndira continued. John was backed by a bright white light. No matter which way he turned, it seemed that the light was always behind him.

When he saw that she was awake, he demanded her name and called her a thief. She had stolen the Incunabulum, he’d said, and held up the Book as proof.

What power did she have over Jane?

Why would Jane not wake?

Each question was followed by pain. He never touched her as he paced, but each time an answer did not satisfy, the Miu felt pain in specific areas; pain that increased each time it was applied.

It continued for a long time.

She was sobbing, insensible before long; too hoarse to scream anymore. She feared she was dying.

Then Jane came to her rescue. Erahn thought it must have been the Thief taking over her body again.

Standing from somewhere on the floor, he’d grabbed John and spun him around. John grabbed her arms and began babbling to her.

Either the language was other than the one he’d used with Erahn, or the ordeal had left her temporarily unable to comprehend.

Jane told her it might have been another language, one that she and John both learned in childhood.

The pain had vanished as soon as Jane had grabbed John’s arm. Its absence flooded her body with a relief that felt physical. Euphoria bathed her shattered nerves in warmth, and she passed out.

“I woke here,” Erahn finished. “You were hurt and without your clothes. I made you as comfortable as I could. That was three four hours ago, ya.”

“No sign of my brother?”

She shook her head.

“How bad am I hurt?”

“You got a big bruise on your left side, ya. I think you got broken ribs.”

“Oh, perfect⸮” After a moment, “Is there anything here we might use to bind them?”

“Just my clothes, ya. What about the pain?”

“I can deal with that. I’ve training in pain control. Come on, help me sit up.” It took a moment and hurt a lot, but Jane was soon sitting, back against the rough side of the cave.

Together, they managed to tear Erahndira’s breeches and vest into strips. Tying the ends together, they made a fair tensor bandage.

Jane concentrated on dulling the pain and, with Erahn’s help, managed to make it to her feet, leaving a Jane-shaped dent two inches deep. The stone underfoot was softer than it had been and warm. It appeared to be crystalline now.

They wrapped the makeshift bandage tightly around Jane’s trunk, from hips to just below her breasts. The laces of Erahn’s vest secured it.

Jane gave a shuddering sigh when they were done.

“Are you okay?”

“Hurts a little, but much less. The ribs are only cracked, I’m sure. They can’t move much now, so I can walk.”

Jane looked around. The room was indeed a made of the stuff of the Spire. The size of the space was difficult to determine because, in addition to its translucency, the material gave off a glow. It might have been about a hundred square feet.

It was hard to be sure, but there didn’t seem to be an exit.

Jane turned to Erahn, still supporting her with a hand around her waist. “How long did you say we’ve been here?”

“Maybe three hours.” Her mouth tightened. “He left us here to die, didn’t he?”

“I can’t believe he’d do that to me. Unless the Thief said or did something to—ohh!” As she spoke, Jane was absentmindedly poked around her head, looking for the Thief’s insensible essence only to find it gone. “He’s not here!” She turned to Erahn, grinning. “The Book Thief is gone, Erahn!”

Her lover’s face bloomed into a smile.

Careless of Jane’s injuries, she hugged her companion tightly, laughing.

Jane returned the embrace despite the pain. Relief, it seemed, was a fine anesthetic.

“We still have to figure a way out of here,” Jane said.

Erahn held her for a few seconds more, then let go. “Ya,” was all she said. She seemed in better spirits, though.

“So, we’re in the Spire.”

Erahn nodded, looking around, tail brushing Jane’s thigh rhythmically as she swung it.

“Well, we got in here somehow; there must be a way to get out. Let’s feel around a bit.”

They split up and began a thorough search of the edges of their prison, slow walking around the perimeter and reaching out to until they could feel the surface of their cage. It was ironic, given that it was bright enough to banish shadows, that touch was their most reliable sense.

Like the floor, the walls were warm and somehow soft. The substance of the Spire was supposed to resemble stone but if this was stone, it was unlike any of which Jane had ever heard. She almost felt as if she could push right through it. An experimental shove hurt her ribs and proved her intuition wrong.

On the other side of the small enclosure, Erahn said, “This is weird, ya. This stone is softer than the stuff we walked on when we got here.”

Jane turned to listen to Erahn, still leaning both palms on the stone. When she turned back and lifted her hands away, her handprints, right down to the whorls and lines on her palms, were clearly visible. “Erahn, the stone’s melting!”

“I know, ya. It did that before when we were comin’ down. It’s happenin’ faster now.”

Jane looked down. As she suspected, her footprints followed her around the room. Worrying about the implications, she finished her circuit.

The two of them then examined the floor; that left only the roof of the cave. There was about thirty-five square feet of ceiling that was too high to reach. There was a patch, right at the top, where the light was almost nonexistent.

Jane asked, “What do you make of that?”

“Stone’s thicker there, I think, ya.”

“Hmm. Maybe if the light is shining through the stone, but What if the light is shining from it?”

“Then the stone would be thinnest there,” the Miu pointed up. “It was dark when I first saw it, ya.”

“The stone is changing. Maybe this glowing is part of it.”

The Miu smiled. “We could melt the stone with our hands, ya.”

“There’s nothing else to try. Let’s do it.”

Jane, it was decided, would sit atop Erahn’s shoulders, and simply press her hands into the stone. It might take time but if that area really was where the barrier of their prison was thinnest, it should eventually get them out.

It took almost two hours.

The first problem was that, after about twenty minutes, Jane’s arms got numb and her shoulders, neck and upper back began to ache, so they had to take frequent breaks.

Swapping was out of the question. Jane’s ribs couldn’t take being on the bottom for any length of time.

Progress was slow but steady, which encouraged them to continue.

Another problem was that Erahndira was sinking into the stone as well. Moving her feet often helped to minimize that, but it did mean reducing Jane’s effective reach. If the ceiling were more than a couple of feet thick, their efforts wouldn’t work.

The end was startlingly sudden. Jane was up to her elbows in the stone. There wasn’t much more she could push without standing on Erahn’s shoulders.

The ache was just becoming unbearable when a loud crack startled her.

Jagged fissures radiated out from the hole her hands had made.

Jane had no time to shout a warning before pieces began snapping off and falling.

Erahn saved them both from significant injury.

Jane felt her calves squeezed painfully tight as the Miu leapt out of the danger zone in one bound. Jane’s attempt to keep her body upright failed and the strain caused her ribs to sing out in pain. It lasted only a moment.

Erahn quickly crouched to her knees. Once Jane had her feet on the ground, she was able to push against a wall and right herself. Stepping forward, she was quickly standing again, her ribs throbbing.

Arms around one another, each panting for different reasons, the two lovers watched the exit from their place of confinement reveal itself. Light poured through the ragged hole.

They shared a grin, a hug, and a passionate kiss. Not for the first time Jane noticed that Erahn’s whiskers tickled.

Jane made a slow count of one hundred after the last piece fell, then walked back to the edge of the hole, stepping over chunks of stone.

Peering up, she saw that they’d burrowed through almost two feet of rock. The edges seemed somewhat unstable, but they’d have to risk it if they were going to get out.

There was the same species of light above. That meant the same kind of stone as in their prison. The pair were deeper inside the Spire than she’d hoped.

Getting out of the cell was trickier than making the hole. Jane stood on Erahn shoulders, a feat that almost landed her on her back twice. Once standing, calves held firmly by the Miu’s strong hands, Jane’s head was just below the top edge of the hole. Levering herself up would mean additional punishment for her ribs.

After a little discussion, Jane and Erahn both crouched. Erahn moved her grip to just above her lover’s ankles. On a three count, both women sprang up straight, Erahndira pushing Jane’s feet up to the full reach of her arms.

Jane moved up more quickly than she’d expected to. Consequently, she hit the upper edge of the ragged hole with ribs instead of her upper chest.

She was in a better position to hoist herself up, but the pressure of the sharp edge against her ribs, light though it was, made pain shoot from her midsection all the way to her toes, forcing a cry of agony from her.

If not for Erahn, she’d have lost her grip and fallen, but the cat-woman now held the soles of her feet steadily. Jane’s knees buckled, but she managed to straighten them quickly.

Pushing up and away from the edge with her arms, Jane was finally able to land her trunk flat and roll clear of the hole.

Panting, she was sure she had damaged herself a bit more.

Jane lay for a full minute, ignoring Erahn’s queries as she focussed on deadening the pain. She tried a bit of the mental healing she’d learned, but she’d never been as good at it as John.

She gave up, not sure if she’d done any good at all.

When she could breathe without gasping, she rolled over and told Erahndira she was all right and she’d look for something to help her get up.

Creaking slowly to her feet and ignoring renewed complaints from her abused ribcage, Jane saw that she was at the end of a crude tunnel.

It widened just where she stood. Lying to one side were her clothes and John’s. She wondered what that meant, but not for long. John’s full length, leather cloak would do nicely as a rope.

She lowered one end of it down the hole until it was just low enough for Erahn to grab a fistful of it. Having nothing to secure it to, Jane simply braced her feet against the far edge of the hole, keeping her knees far enough apart for Erahn to climb through. It was a near thing.

Jane’s buttocks were barely half on the edge. Wrapping the other corner of the cloak in her fist, she held on as Erahn climbed.

In surprisingly little time, the Miu’s head poked up between Jane’s thighs, giving her a closeup look at Jane’s vulva. Her eyes darted to Jane’s, and she ran her tongue over her lips and smiled.

Jane started to laugh, and her hands slipped.

Erahn was quick.

The Miu grabbed an edge of the hole and swung her weight. Jane was pulling on the cloak hard enough that, when Erahn’s weight disappeared, she over balanced and fell back hard on the passage floor. The cloak sailed over her head.

Erahndira swung her body sideways, hooked a foot on the edge of hole and lifted herself up.

She rolled over to where Jane was still chuckling.

Jane expected her to join her on the floor. Instead, the cat-woman lay between her thighs. The first stroke of her tongue along Jane’s labia sent shivers through her. “Erahn, we should be—”

“Shhh. Later.”

Jane’s concerns melted before her lover’s deft tongue and fingers. Perhaps it was the stress of the moment or worry over what had happened to John, but wherever the case, Jane came quickly and hard.

The pain of her ribs was washed away by orgasm and its aftermath.

Erahn gathered the cloak up and lay along close Jane’s side under it, embracing her gently. They both drifted into sleep.

Her last thought was gratitude for Erahndira and indifference to what the future might bring.

* * *

Jane woke again on a floor softer than stone should be.

The cloak made her hot; she pushed it down to her waist. That forced a twinge from her injured side. She grunted and heard a sleepy noise from Erahndira, curled away from her.

As the cloak slipped down her companion’s body, Erahn took a deep breath and stretched. It went on for a while. In that moment, she was every inch the cat she so resembled.

Jane was again pierced by an intense affection for her.

Erahndira rolled over and grinned. Leaning up, she kissed Jane. Like her stretch, it lingered. “How d’ya feel, lover mine?”

She was stiff from sleeping on the floor and knew her ribs would ache fiercely once she tried to stand. “Wonderful,” she answered, meaning it.

“Hungry?”

“Not especially.” She really wasn’t, which puzzled her. “How long since we’ve eaten?”

“Dunno, ya. Coupla days, maybe?” Erahn got up and held out a hand for Jane.

It did hurt.

“I’m going to have to rebind my ribs, I think. The bandage has worked loose.” On her feet now, her side hurt more than she thought it would.

As Erahn unwound the last of the leather strip, it became obvious that Jane had indeed worsened her injury climbing out of their cage. The bruise had spread. “Hold me up,” Jane asked. The Miu held her by one arm, just under Jane’s armpit. Jane probed the darkest part of the bruise with two stiffened fingers.

One rib gave a fraction of an inch. She couldn’t hold in a small scream and her knees buckled. “Damn!” She was panting, willing the pain to decrease.

After a moment, it did.

Erahn’s face was painted with concern.

“I broke one of the ribs climbing out of there.” She pointed to the hole.

“What do we do, ya?”

“Rebind them. It’s all we can do for now. When we get above, I’ll find a healer.” Unspoken was the worry that getting out of here was in no sense a certainty.

It hurt more getting her ribs bound, but less once done. She moved stiffly, but it was bearable.

“Let’s get some clothes on,” Jane suggested. She needed help donning hers.

Erahndira was reluctant to put John’s clothes on. They were too large for one thing and there were too many of them. At home, she had worn just breeches most of the time.

With Jane’s encouragement, Erahn modified John’s leather pants by cutting them short. She wore his white, heavy silk shirt untucked. His leather coat and cloak they left. Jane thought the Miu looked a lot better than the latter thought she did and said so.

John’s pack held food and, to Jane’s relief, first aid supplies including painkillers and a balm that would quicken the healing of the bruises and speed the knitting of bones.

It meant undoing then redoing the binding a second time. There were actual tensor bandages, too.

Twenty minutes later, Jane was finally ready and almost pain free.

Erahn stood in her modified duds, lips pursed, holding the torn remains of what used to be her clothing.

When she turned that sour expression on Jane, the latter couldn’t help herself, the laughter just burst forth. It hurt her side, but not enough to rob her of mirth.

Erahn joined in.

The food was dried meat, mostly. It didn’t seem at all appetizing. Again, they wondered why they weren’t hungry.

Jane took out the UT chronometer the Thief had been carrying, figuring she could get an estimate of their time without food, and got a nasty shock. “That’s wrong; it has to be!”

“What?”

“Unless John’s been screwing with this, we left Porta over five weeks ago.”

* * *

Discussion of the mysteries surrounding them having proved fruitless, Jane and Erahn decided to just try to get out.

The passage ahead of them was rough, but large enough to walk in comfortably. It went straight as far as they could see. As they traveled it, Jane thought how unlikely it was that John could have dug this out himself. He must have had help.

That help might have been the Incunabulum. He had the Book.

If Erahn was correct, his present state of mind made him an especially dangerous keeper.

If she could only talk to him! She knew he’d come after her but had no idea how he’d gotten here first. Did he know she was coming here? How could he?

Then Jane remembered about the trap the Thief had forced her to leave for him. How could he even be alive? She was glad he was as John was the only family she had. She glanced at Erahn then, who smiled and took her hand. Okay, not the only family, anymore. He was behaving so differently; how could Jane be sure it was even him?

The passage appeared to end up ahead.

No, it changed direction. It sloped up and to the left.

They followed it. The floor of the passage was rough enough that, with care, they could climb without incident. The walls provided handholds as well. The passage wound a bit as it climbed. They encountered side passages that burrowed straight or twisty into the distance.

Erahn wondered aloud what they all were for. “It’s almost as if he was lookin’ for somethin’, ya.”

Jane turned to her. “Yeah. What, though?”

After an hour of climbing, and many more side passages, they were out. The last bit was steep, virtually vertical. Erahn again had to help. This time, though, she pulled Jane up.

They were in darkness. “Is this where we came in?” Jane asked.

Erahn shook her head. “It’s just stone, not the Spire, ya. Look.” She pointed to the ground. Near the glowing hole they’d emerged from, it was just possible to make out that the stone, which looked grey, was multi-coloured. Pale hues of every sort made it up. In brighter light, it would look quite pretty.

Jane stood up.

They were in another tunnel. This one was larger and looked to have been worked professionally. It was rough, but the floor was smooth and the tunnel itself square.

At one end of it, light bloomed. They decided to head that way.

The glow brightened rapidly as the end of the tunnel approached. It opened out into a larger room, flooded with yellow light.

As they stood at the very end of the tunnel, the scale of the chamber before them drew a gasp from Jane.

It was an amphitheatre. Row on row of stone benches descended steeply to a stage made small by distance. The benches continued upward much further than they did down. The room’s dimensions were staggering.

A part of Jane wondered how this could fit under Glyph. A larger part wondered if they were still under the city at all.

The stage was occupied. It was too far to tell by whom, but a glowing point of light was flickering, as if a body were obscuring the light as it moved.

Erahn had no doubt. “John,” she growled the name.

It had to be. Now that the confrontation was imminent, Jane was frightened.

Her brother had the Incunabulum and had tortured someone she had come to love. He had survived something that should have killed him, and she was certain he was trying to accomplish something vile.

A lifetime of training and generations of Airkhart heritage saved her from an act of cowardice. “Let’s go.” She started climbing down the stone benches. Erahn matched her stride for stride.

They were about halfway there, close enough for Jane to be sure it was John, when a group of people emerged from another archway opposite them, closer to her brother.

Before Jane could decide whether to shout a warning, something bright white that sizzled flew from the stage and hit the spot where the group stood. The whole area around them disappeared in black smoke and blue fire.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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